Medicaid Planning: Protect Your Spouse

We see sad cases all the time:

A couple spends over $80,000 on nursing home care after the wife could have qualified for Medicaid.

Another couple spends down half of their life savings after being denied Medicaid. Then the husband dies, leaving his wife to live on Social Security and diminished savings. With proper planning, the spent money could have been used to provide future income for the wife.

Countless other avoidable cases of future insecurity due to lost savings and income.

Federal law provides a number of protections for a Medicaid applicant’s spouse (also known as a “community spouse”). Problem is, too few people know of these protections and too many couples fail to take advantage of them.

Posted inMedicaid Planning|Comments Off on 7 Costliest Mistakes to Avoid When a Spouse Enters a Nursing Home

Imagine that your husband recently suffered a stroke. After a stay in the hospital, he now resides in a nursing home. His doctor tells you your husband will not likely improve and will need to stay at the home indefinitely.

A Medicaid applicant’s spouse shouldn’t become impoverished, according to federal law. One protection for the spouse is the community spouse resource allowance. (Another is the monthly maintenance needs allowance (or MMNA) which you can read about here.) The community spouse resource allowance (CSRA) gets its name because it is an allowance of resources (money or other […]